20. For there is not a righteous man on earthwho only does good and refrains from sin.
21. Do not give heed to everything people say,lest you hear your servant cursing you.
22. Your heart knowsthat many times you have spoken a curse against others.
23. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said,“I will be wise,”but it was far from me.
24. That which is, is far off,and exceedingly deep.Who can find it out?
25. And I turned my heart to know,and seek and search out wisdom in how things areand to experience wicked folly,even foolishness and madness.
26. I find more bitter than deaththe woman whose heart is snaresand nets,and whose hands are fetters.He who pleases God escapes her,but the sinner is taken by her.
27. “See, this is what I found,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find the sum,
28. which my soul still seeksbut I do not find:One man among a thousand I have found,but a woman among all these I have not found.
29. See, this only have I found:that God made man upright,but they have sought out many schemes.”